Government requests meals and snacks for asylum seekers at Quebec border

A Haitian boy holds onto his father as they approach an illegally crossing point, staffed by Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers, from Champlain, N.Y., to Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, Monday, Aug. 7, 2017. Seven days a week, 24-hours a day people from across the globe are arriving at the end of a New York backroad so they can walk across a ditch into Canada knowing they will be instantly arrested, but with the hope the Canadian government will be kinder to them than the United States. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

The federal government is looking for a supplier to provide “meals and snacks” for asylum seekers at the St–Bernard–de–Lacolle border crossing in Quebec.

That’s according to a tender notice posted on the government’s buy and sell website by the Canada Border Services Agency and a request for proposals.

The contact period is for one year, with the option to extend up to four additional three-month periods.

The current supplier’s contract expired, explained a spokesperson for CBSA, and the call for proposals is to replace or renew the contract. The meals are offered to asylum seekers while they are being processed by the CBSA at Lacolle.

Canada has been seeing a surge in asylum-seekers at its borders and they have been crossing into Canada between official ports of entry to avoid being sent back to the United States under the Safe Third Country Agreement.

Under the current rules, refugees are required in most cases to request refugee protection in the first ‘safe’ country they arrive in. The agreement prohibits asylum claims at the U.S.-Canada land border, by train or at airports. Because asylum-seekers would be turned away at official land crossings, thousands have crossed through unguarded sections of the border.

But as President Donald Trump continues to steadily revoke “temporary protected status” (TPS) from people who have been allowed to live in the United States and work legally for years, more asylum-seekers continue to show up between border points in Quebec and Manitoba.

The head of the union representing Canada’s border guards, Jean-Pierre Fortin, told iPolitics in January that 60 to 70 people are still crossing at the Lacolle border each day, totalling around 400 people weekly.

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Of course! Set up chairs and tables and let’s have waiters/waitresses serve champagne and caviar! Some….not all are criminals…..some here to take advantage of our welfare and health services. Let’s send out gold plated invitations from Trudeau himself. Can It Get Any Stupider?

What does iPolitics not Understand about the word “temporary”in TPS? Illegal migrants crossing our border are not Trump’s Fault, they are Trudeau’s – (1) for inviting them, (2) for deliberately failing to seal our porous borders once and for all! These people received temporary asylum (kind of like a house guest) – now it is time for them to go Home!

I’ll send food after they get in a truck & go back to United States. Illegals are not wanted! We have a lot to deal with here & don’t need additional burdens. Trudeau is giving our tax dollars to everyone except Canadians. He has to be stopped. The illegals should seek help in their own country. We can’t afford you. We need to help our worthy vets… Elderly , homeless citizens, working poor etc. Etc. Etc. Yes we have hungry children here to help first.

The RCMP need to make an arrangement with the US border crossing so that when illegal immigrants want assylum from US the RCMP drive them back to the proper legal border crossing and not let them through our borders that are not legal.